Ophiolite

Another thread devoid of win. (My apologies if we have a rule forbidding manipulation of member's names for ironic or derogatory purposes. Sometime's I just loose control. Sincerely, Oaf-I-a-lot.)

Formation of planets, in this context, is taken to mean at what time they reached close to their current masses. The evidence points to this having occured within a period measured in tens of millions of years, rather than hundreds of millions, or only a couple of million. In that regard, over the lifetime of the system, they pretty well all formed at the same time. Is Venus still developing? Well, yes, but so is the Earth and Mars and Mercury. And the outer planets. Change is the only constant.

The forum is full of stars.

The above was your response to my question "Windevoid, at what point in your science education did you conclude you had a better understanding of science than persons who had devoted their adult life to tough education and hard working, aggressively evaluated, research? ....... I cannot even begin to think in terms of making the kind of criticisms of science you make so seemingly carelessly. Can you explain your rationale and justification for this approach, please." Your answer fails completely to answer my question. Are you seriously comparing some simple electrical experiments with a lifetime of study? I have done experiments with electrical circuits and inclined planes and chemical apparatus and cloud chambers and geiger counters. I have spent months of time mapping geological outcrops, Many more months studying rocks in thin section. I've laid out geophones, set of explosions and hand cranked the analysis of the data. Etc, etc.None of that in any way equips me to challenge the methodology of science. So, I ask again, what gives you the belief that you know enough to do so?

I think you mean, was there a time when the planets in our solar system were closer to the sun than now. The galaxy consists of billions of planetary systems, so very likley there have been times when some of them approached our sun more closely than is the case at present. In terms of the solar system, planets did a lot of moving around when the system was forming. Researchers seek to figure this out by running complex simulations. From what I recall it is likely that Jupiter moved in a little closer than it was, while Uranus and neptune may have swapped places. There was not, however, a general condition that all or most of the planets were at one time closer. I don't want to go into the effects of decrease in mass of the sun as a consequence of nuclear fusion.

Large black pillars?

Hi Unity+, I am slightly puzzled by your post. Nowhere in the post do I suggest that you might be frustrated, so I don't understand why you mentioned it. I am also puzzled by your reference to "trying to disprove anything of a religious sense". I suppose this is related to my remark favouring the use of the term Darwinism because it would 'piss off creationists'. That was a lighthearted jibe at the obssession some creationists have for bandying around the word Darwinist as a catch-all to describe 99.9% of biologists. I wasn't seeking to disprove anything religious - just indulging in some gentle mockery. I don't see the evil in that. If I misunderstood your points, please clarify.

I posted this on the forum during a similar discussion, but I'm not sure where. I think it is relevant to this thread. What we call something is, or at least should be, less important than what it is. Our understanding of evolutionary mechanisms is still far from complete and, as CharonY points out, not fully integrated. Large steps have been taken over a century and a half. Is it important to mark those steps? Important, but not necessarily essential. Darwin's idea was accepted with suprising alacrity by the scientific community, supporting the claim by some that it was an idea whose time had come. (And Wallace served to offer confirmation to that notion.) Yet by the turn of the century Darwinism was all but dead as people gravitated to mutation and the concepts of Mendel rediscovered by Bateman, de Vries and Corren. When the two were fused in the 1930s and 40s did the resultant concept merit a new name? One could hardly call it Haldane/Huxley/Dhobzhanksy/Fisher/Simpson/Stebbins/Wright/Mayrism, so the Modern Synthesis was born. And now, more than half a century later, we've learnt even more about the mechanisms and processes, so much more that some people think a new name is in order. Is it? I said at the outset that what we call something is, or at least should be, less important than what it is. But is this true? Darwin may have been the right man in the right place at the right time, but he ignited a revolution that is arguably of greater scientific importance than any other. His handful of principles still lie at the heart of evolutionary thought, so my view is simple. Let's just call the current hypothesis and those that will develop in future, Darwinism. Direct, concise, effective. And it has the secondary advantage that it will piss off the creationists.

Indeed. They would find a million new ways to say "**** you!".

Since the evidence I saw from palaeontology in the 1960s left, in my view, gaping gaps in the explanation of evolution - which clearly was reality - I turned to those life sciences that actually deal with living, rather than fossilised things. Again I felt there was a degree of complacency about the comprehensiveness of the explanations and proposed mechanisms. When hox genes were discovered and evo-devo gained some notoriety I thought "Now we are getting somewhere." So, all of this is, for me definitely not novel, just long overdue and the process is far from complete.

I found this was a little like a documentary on, for example, astronomy, that declared "Scientists now suspect the universe was once in a much denser state and has been expanding for the last 13 billion years." I exaggerate slightly, but not by much. Unlike CharonY I am not immersed in the field, yet my sketchy amateur interest is sufficient to the point that none of the outline concepts strike me as novel. The field, at times, seems split between two extremes: those who think the Modern synthesis has just undergone some minor adjustments and those who think the world has been turned upside down. I believe those viewpoints have mroe to do with personality than science and ultimately don't do much for the field.

Also, why would super-solids be sufficiently hot or cold to burn you? That makes no sense.

Excuse the off-topic nature of this query. Is WinDevoid equivalent to LossRich? And if so does that inform the matter of motivation?

1a. Does the description of the room place the window some distance from the door? You assume the window is on the wall opposite the door, rather than adjacent wall? Is that stated in the story? 1b. He did not jump to the conclusion. He had arrived at a sute of solutions that lacked evidence to preferone over another. the last piece of evidence provided the meansof that distinciton. 1c. Are you asserting muderers are universally not stupid, or capable of stupid acts. 1d. I need to reread the story to comment. 2. It was likely believed to be a medical fact at that time and therefore a logical deduction.

Windevoid, at what point in your science education did you conclude you had a better understanding of science than persons who had devoted their adult life to tough education and hard working, aggressively evaluated, research? I am genuinely curious as to what leads you to think you have something of major significance to offer the world of science. Now I am not saying you do not have something unique, but I cannot imagine the mindset that would lead someone lacking scientific credentials to arrive at that viewpoint of their own worth. I am not a modest person. (Although some would say I have much to be modest about.) Yet for all my lack of intellectual modesty I cannot even begin to think in terms of making the kind of criticisms of science you make so seemingly carelessly. Can you explain your rationale and justification for this approach, please.

Here are two observations that may aid the dicussion: 1. Oceanic crust is continually recycled via plate tectonics. No oceanic crust has yet been found that is older tna about 200 million years. Of course we have relic crust in the - wait for it - ophiolite complexes, so they could be worth examining further. 2. The oldest rocks are slightly older than the 3.5G yr you mention. Deabte surrounds many of the determinations, but 3.6G yr is certain, 3.8 probable and 4.0 possible. (And I exclude the Jack Hills zircons, which are minerals, not rocks.)

I refer you to the well known phrase of John McEnroe. It is a decade or so since I last read it. I don't recall any. What did you have in mind?

1. By ignoring the programming language I planned to use. 2. By defining the controlling factors in evolution. 3. By structuring algorithms to reflect the behaviour of those controlling factors.

Bottom line - we are animals and we behave in ways appropriate to the particular kind of animal we have evolved to be. There is precious little about our behaviour that is not, ultimately a response to evolutionary pressures. Sometimes the reponses are different, for cultural reasons, but the fact that a response is required is down to evolution.

Once again the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes to our aid. "Space is big, Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-boggingly big it is. I mean, you may think it is a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." Douglas Adams

My solution to the difficulties associated with posting on a mobile phone was to stop.

I think I am missing something here. Could you clarify how the Earth's gravity would stabilise levitation?

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, as I suspect there are different answers depending upon what field you are looking at. Let's consider chemistry and let's take a simple chemical reaction. Let's add an acid to a base, the product of which should be a salt, plus water. NaOH + HCL = NaCl + H2O That is a balanced equation. Why can't I write it this way? NaOH + HCL = 2NaCl + H2O Because that would mean that in mixing sodium hydroxide with hydrocholric acid I create, from nowhere, an additional sodium atom for everyone in the original mixture. That is in violation of the conservation of mass. The two sides of the equation must be balanced. What do you find troublesome about that?

The universe is largely indifferent to your views. It doesn't make sense to you. That is quite a different thing from what you said. Now that doesn't make sense.

I would challenge the notion that this would be illegal. Perhaps, but no legislation springs to mind that would apply and I would be confident that there would be many countries in which it would not contravene any laws. Those members more familiar with regulations governing bioengineering can probably come in with a more informed view. I would also challenge the notion of immorality. If anything a case can be made for it being a very moral act. Expensive. Absolutely. But so is the large hadron collider.